Suda On Line
Search

An intelligent breath.[1]
"Parts or types of the soul [are] three: rational, spirited, appetitive.[2] The form of government, therefore, must be triple too, each form of government containing the three parts, although each form of government gives shape to everything in accordance with only one ruling factor. And the rational form of government comes first, and it is what one might call the life and form of government in the Golden Age of Cronos. The spirited form of government, for its part, is the one which disintegrates into wars and battles over first prizes and glory, as is repeated over and over in the histories. The appetitive form of government, in wasting away and being corrupted eveywhere by an intemperant luxuriousness, focuses its understanding on base and effeminate things; it is associated with cowardice and wallows in complete swinishness. It is in love with money, it is servile and, in bringing about nothing valuable nor appropriate to free people, is slavish and weak. It always measures happiness with the belly and the genitals, and it does not make use of a spirit noble in mind. Similarly, the body that is left to lie in only one place is enfeebled and is no longer able to able to move. And the life of men who are taking part in the government right now in its origin has been shown to be far more debased."[3]
"Plato, in his own dialogues, has granted that the soul of the irrationals is mortal, and that all the affections of the soul are proper of the complex [of body and soul], and they are not peculiar to the soul. The same thing happens in the case of thought. And the uttermost and highest part of the soul is the cause of being alive for the living beings. For Aristotle accounts for the vegetative power as a cause of being alive. In effect, nothing lacking soul is able to be alive. For that reason, only the things that take part in it are alive -- I mean of course the plants. And Aristotle wants the substance of the soul to be only one, a substance that is composed out of different substances which have been unified."[4]

[1] cf. generally Hesychius nu608. The glossing is Stoic in character; in fact, the Stoics used to define the substance of god as "an intelligent and fiery breath" (see Aetius, 1.6 = SVF 2.1009).
[2] The tripartite model is Plato's and it is not attested earlier than the Republic: see especially book 4, 435Bff. For a clear discussion of the issue see Robinson (1995) 39-50. The topic of the tripartion of the soul is also presented by Plato in the Phaedrus and the Timaeus: see Robinson, 1995, 119-127.
[3] Damascius, Life of Isidore fr. 30a Zintzen (22 Asmus); cf. upsilon 78, upsilon 79.
[4] John Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's de anima 44.26-27, 45.6 & 18, 196.1-4, 197.31-32.